Holy Massive Price Drop, Reggie!

The big news of the day out of Nintendo is the announcement of a massive price drop in the 3DS. If you haven’t heard, the system is getting $80 knocked off its price next month and will retail for $169.99.

$80!!! This is my sad face.

As someone who bought his 3DS last month, when I first heard the news I was pissed. I could have honestly waited (then again, my 3DS only cost me $100 because I traded in a few games). However, when I heard about the Ambassador program, it made the news go down a bit easier. The program works like this: anyone who buys the 3DS before the price drop will get 20 NES/GBA games for free. The GBA games will be exclusive for the Ambassadors, while the NES games will supposedly be updated for retail at a later date, which Ambassadors will also get for free.

It’s not a bad deal. Some of the games included are The Legend of Zelda & Super Mario Bros. for the NES (games which I only own two copies of currently) and Metroid Fusion, Mario vs. Donkey Kong & Warioware for the GBA. A full list hasn’t been released of which games will be given to Ambassadors, but I hope we also get Metroid: Zero Mission, Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap and Advance Wars. I dream they give us Earthbound 0 for the NES and Earthbound 2 for the GBA.

20 free games?! 12 of which I probably already own?! Yay?

Anyone who has been following the 3DS since its announcement could have seen this price drop coming; it’s just a shock that it came so soon. There are several possible reasons why the drop has come so fast: Vita being announced for $249, most of the world is still recovering from the recession and/or nuclear disaster, it was handedly being outsold by the DS, $249 is too expensive for the system and the fact it’s just not selling.

There’s also the additional problem of 3rd parties delaying their games until the system becomes more successful. That’s something nobody wants to hear.

It’s rumored that Nintendo will take a loss on every system sold, which is sad because I believe Nintendo could have avoided this entirely if they sold the 3DS for $199 from the start. Whether that’s true or not, hopefully the new price will get more 3DS’s into the hands of gamers so the upcoming games can be really successful. If anything, hopefully this will provide a valuable lesson to Nintendo that they can’t overprice their systems.

What do you think? Is the new low price enough for you to pick-up the system?

ittybit ittybit is a lifelong gamer who has decided that after three years in the workforce, he's going to dedicate himself to his life's passion: cocaine. Wait, no, that was in my past life as the lead singer of a punk band. My life's passion is video games. That's why I'm writing for this site and working on my own iPhone game which I hope to have out by the end of the year.